


Your Name

by Melody_Of_The_River



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Because your girl can't take prolonged sadness, Dreams, Dreams vs. Reality, M/M, Memories, Not with this ship, Recovered Memories, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-02-16 18:08:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18696631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melody_Of_The_River/pseuds/Melody_Of_The_River
Summary: “You’re going to forget this, Levi,” he says softly, hand closing tighter around Levi’s fist.“You always do,” he adds. “In the end.”Levi pauses. Turns his head around to look at the man next to him.“What did you just say?”But before blue eyes can even turn to look at him –The blaring alarms from the far corner of the room bring him out of his uneasy haze.





	Your Name

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on [Tumblr](https://melodyoftheriver.tumblr.com/) for more Eruris.  
> Thanks to the awesome @tidal-sehnsucht ([Tumblr](https://tidal-sehnsucht.tumblr.com/) [AO3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownlessk_ing/pseuds/crownlessk_ing)) for beta-ing for me ❤️  
> P.S. I wrote this whole fic with the song "It's been a long, long time" by Harry James and Helen Forrest in my mind.

_“Hey, blondie.”_

_“What?”_

_“Stop staring.”_

_Levi’s hand trembles at his side._

_“I’m not staring.”_

_“You are,” he says, without turning his head towards the other man, “You’re looking right at me.”_

_“How would you know?”_

_“I can feel it,” he replies simply._

_The blond chuckles, mutters out an apology, but doesn’t look away. Levi clenches his fist, and unclenches it, folds his arms across his chest, and then lets them fall to his sides a moment later. He has been unconsciously biting the inside of his cheek, but doesn’t realize it until the metallic taste of blood fills his mouth. He wants to vomit out his breakfast. He wants to sling his rifle over his shoulder and hide for the rest of his days. He wants to run away, to flee, to –_

_“It’s going to be all right,” the man’s voice approaches closer. Levi feels a warm hand clasp around his clenched fist, calming the tremors raking through his body; feels the slow drum of the man’s steady heartbeat against his own violently thrumming pulse. “It’s going to be all right,” he says again, slower this time, and Levi finally dares to sneak a look at him. Even with the blood trickling down his temple, and the mud caked into his wounds, the blond stands next to him with all the glory and permanence of the sun above them. The collar of his olive-green jacket flaps around softly in the wind, as do the laurels and medals pinned to his chest._

_“You’re going to forget this, Levi,” he says softly, hand closing tighter around Levi’s fist._

_The cameraman sets up his equipment, starts the countdown on his right hand…_

_“You always do,” he adds. “In the end.”_

_Five fingers._

_Four._

_Three._

_Two –_

_Levi pauses. Turns his head around to look at the man next to him._

_“What did you just say?”_

_The camera flashes. The man’s hair catches in the glow like hay on fire, but before blue eyes can even turn to look at him –_

The blaring alarms from the far corner of the room bring him out of his uneasy haze.

_One._

 

Levi blinks his eyes open slowly, and raises a hand to shield his eyes against the sallow glow of the streetlamp behind the curtains. His cheek is wet with tears… even though he has already forgotten what he was just dreaming about. Only the half-formed memory of warmth remains, lingering still to the skin of his hand. He cannot remember what the dream was even about anymore. Only remembers some dreamlike images of coats, and cameras, and countdowns. But he suspects that they, too… will be gone before the sun comes up.

The alarm is still ringing, irritating him, accusing him, and Levi finally throws off the covers, swings his legs off the bed and walks barefoot to his desk to slap the alarm clock shut. His mind is still a bit disoriented from sleep, and for a moment he just stands there, staring at the red blinking numerals, watching the time trickle by. It’s 5:45 am. He doesn’t need to be anywhere until 9. He doesn’t even remember why he set the alarm clock for this early, but now that he is up, he thinks he may as well make the most of it.

By the time he makes the bed, shuts off the laptop he had left open last night, and clears up the plates still sitting on his desk from yesterday’s dinner, it is already 6:05 am. He turns off the lights in his bedroom and carries the plates towards the kitchen. His breakfast consists of a simple cup of black tea, and a peanut-butter sandwich. An inventory of his fridge tells him he would be out of bread by tomorrow, and he makes a mental note to get another loaf from the grocery store on his way back. He takes out the trash, does the dishes from yesterday, turns on his phone to look at any new messages – there are none – turns it back off, and by 7 am he finds himself already done with most of his tasks for the morning. He debates going back to sleep for an hour or so, until he has to leave for work, but finding himself well-rested enough, decides instead to change into a t-shirt and jeans and go to work earlier that day.

 

Levi works as the custodian of a local library. As a teen, he had often had big dreams about moving out of his hometown and traveling the world, but his unimpressive academic history left little opportunities for him to consider. He trained as a bookkeeper under the previous custodian of the library and after the man’s death, took up the job himself. It is not a bad profession, not at all in fact. The government pay isn’t bad, more than enough to suit his living standards, and the library itself is a reputable one, with some fifteen thousand books in its arsenal – of which Levi has read maybe twenty, at most – and a steady stream of visitors that have not dwindled since his predecessor’s time. It is a good enough living; better than what he deserves, Levi thinks at times. And rewarding too: the people in his city know his name. Respect him. Maybe it isn’t the stuff of dreams, but real life rarely ever is.

Yet, despite that, Levi can’t help but feel a sort of emptiness in his life. Not from the lack of any personal relationships – no, it went far deeper than that…

Once in a while, when Levi wakes up, he finds himself crying, and he doesn’t know why. The dream he had; he can never recall. But the sensation that he has lost something, forgotten something; something important, something close to him – that feeling lingers for a long time after he wakes up. And when it’s gone, he finds himself searching again. Searching in the crowds in the train, in the visitors that frequent his library; on busy roads, on empty streets. Searching for what, he doesn’t know. Something? Someone? Or maybe just that feeling again… Sometimes he turns a corner in one of the many aisles at his library and almost expects to feel a familiar sort of presence following him. He can’t put a name to it, whatever he’s looking for. Whoever he’s looking for. Sometimes he feels like the name is just on the tip of his tongue, but no sooner does his mind catch onto that stray thread than it breaks into nothingness once again.

 

Levi takes the train to the library, which takes about ten minutes in total. By 7:30 am, he has already unlocked the giant oak doors to the library and settled himself in his counter behind the receptionist’s desk. The library doesn’t really have any staff other than himself – the intern or lone high school student trying to improve their resume only last for about a month or two in total. If Levi’s innate hostility doesn’t make them quit, their real-life obligations do. As far as Levi is concerned, he is the only object of any permanence the old, rusty building has seen or will ever see in the next fifty years. Unless another trouble-making, good-for-nothing brat shows up to take up his apprenticeship, the library will probably end with him too. For Levi, this is something of a comforting thought, knowing how the fate of this old worn-out structure is so closely tied to his own. Whatever resentment he may have had for the profession in his youth, age has softened his edges a little bit, so that now he considers the building as something of a constant companion and a best friend. He enjoys the work he does: taking care of the library, cleaning its scores of shelves, keeping a record of the books, arranging things in that particular order that he is fond of. It’s tedious work, but it’s rewarding nonetheless.

 

By 9 am, when Levi finally sinks down onto his rotating chair at the receptionist’s desk after finishing all the chores around the library, he brews himself another cup of tea and picks up yesterday’s newspaper where he had left it, shuffling aimlessly through the current events and articles section, eyes skimming over the pages, looking for something to catch his interest. The clicks of a boot against the library’s marble floors announce the approach of a visitor, yet Levi does not look up from his newspaper and cup of tea as the man approaches his desk.

“Good morning.”

“Hm,” Levi nods in acknowledgement, turning a leaf over on his newspaper.

“I’m looking for books on the second world war…?” the man begins.

Levi huffs, pulls out his register, and quickly flips through the pages. “Aisle number 12… Second and third row…” he replies, “Do you want to know where the archives section is as well?”

“Yes, please,” the man says. Pauses. “Thank you,” he adds, like an afterthought. Levi hums dismissively.

“The archives are in Aisle number 21. World War II section is in the back row,” he says, “Please put the books and the files exactly where you found them. You can bring them to the counter if you want to issue a book or an archive file.”

“I will. Thank you very much.”

The man turns around and makes his way to the Aisle Levi has directed him to, his boots clicking away behind him the only sound in the library besides Levi’s occasional leaf turning. Levi sneaks an uninterested look at the man as he walks away – golden hair, green jacket, black military style boots. Tall. Well-built. A positively uninspired sense of fashion in every sense of the word. Boring. Nerd. Single.

Levi shakes his head, and turns his attention back to his reading before he can attach any more unfounded stereotypes to the man’s receding back, as he rounds a corner and disappears into Aisle 12.

 

It’s a quiet day, all in all. Only a few more people show up after the first, and they too leave after issuing a book or two. One of them is a high schooler preparing for her exams, and the other two are an elderly couple just looking for a quiet place to read.

Levi does not see the blond again.

Around 4 pm, having exhausted all his tea reserves, Levi finally stands up from his chair, and walks towards the aisle to solve the mystery of this _disappearing_ blond. For a moment, Levi thinks that the man simply left when his attention must have been elsewhere, but as he approaches aisle 21, his doubts are abandoned when he sees the tall lanky figure of the man, crouched down on the floor at the very back of the aisle, next to the Archive VCR, watching World War II footage with his headphones in his ear.

“Hey,” Levi calls to him, but the man does not move. Levi sighs, and walks over to him, patting him lightly on the shoulder. The man jolts up in surprise, hand moving unconsciously to catch at Levi’s wrist. Levi gives him a puzzled look and the man lets him go just as quickly, and fumbles to pull off his headphones.

“God, Levi, you scared –” he begins, pausing abruptly, as if catching his own slip. “…me,” he ends, looking up towards Levi’s face. Levi raises a suspicious eyebrow at him, and the man quickly detaches his headphone jack from the VCR port and stands up.

“I’m sorry, I –”

“How do you know my name?” Levi interrupts; voice curt, direct and unforgiving.

“Um, I…” the man looks around nervously, “I saw it on your,” he swallows, “Um, your desk has a… name holder.”

“Ah, I see,” Levi responds. “Then why are you sweating like a pig for?”

The man chuckles, probably louder than Levi’s jab deserves, an anxious edge to his voice that Levi cannot ignore. “You just scared me is all,” he replies quickly. His hands are trembling. The man folds them behind his back but not before Levi can notice. He seems like an absolute nervous wreck. Levi can’t help but take pity on him.

“Ahan,” Levi nods incredulously, looking up into the man’s face. He has quite a generic-looking face in Levi’s opinion: blond, blue-eyed, thick bushy eyebrows that sit like caterpillars on his face. There are probably a thousand men that match his description right in this very city, but for some reason, this particular face feels oddly familiar to him. Levi furrows his eyebrows, trying to place the man’s face within the archives of his memory, sighs when he ultimately can’t, shakes his head, and leads the man out of the aisle with a wave of his hand.

“Come on, I’m closing the library,” Levi offers in way of explanation.

“The closing times are 5 pm, no?”

“No, it’s 4.”

“Ah, right,” the man says, “I apologize.”

“Then do you want to issue a book or…?”

“No, I just needed to finish this footage.”

“You can take that home as well.”

“I don’t have a VCR at home.”

“Well then, just, I dunno. Come back tomorrow, I guess. The library is always open.”

“Uh… sure,” the man replies, discouraged. “Yeah. I guess I’ll do that.”

“So, no books then?”

“No, I think I’ll just issue one tomorrow when I come back for the cassettes.”

“Suit yourself…”

They walk through the aisles in quiet, until they reach Levi’s desk.

“Thank you so much for your precious time, I really appreciate it,” the man says, his voice almost laughably sincere.

Levi scoffs. “Don’t mention it,” he says, going around his desk to sit back in his chair, “It’s my job.”

“Well…” the man pauses, “Thank you. Regardless.”

Levi meets the man’s eyes just as he turns around to walk towards the door, and can’t help but feel that eerie sense of familiarity again. The blond’s eyes look disappointed for some reason, and Levi can’t shake off the feeling that it has to do with more than just being unable to finish his cassette. It is a sad kind of look the man wears on his face, one that Levi is all too familiar with, more so recently than he would have liked. He has been having more of those weird memory-like dreams again, after which whenever he looks into his bathroom mirror, he cannot help but feel that there is someone else staring back at him, like his mind still hasn’t detached himself from the skin of the man he was in his dream. The man’s blue eyes remind Levi of the same haunted, familiar-yet-unfamiliar, just-on-the-tip-of-his-tongue look that his own gray eyes stare at him with in the mornings. Levi wonders faintly, as he reaches forward for his kettle again, if the man, too, has lost something recently, maybe someone close to him. What tragedy could have befallen the poor thing to make him look like that, Levi wonders.

But his musings are cut short when he remembers the now-empty kettle, and glances at the time on his wrist watch. Hastily packing up his workspace so that he can go home, he shuffles around the newspapers, sending the new and old ones flying into the recycling cabinet under his desk. Something clinks against the teacups as he is shifting things around, and Levi turns to see what it is. Lying there, in the middle of all the papers is the metallic nameplate with the name “Levi Ackerman” engraved on it, the same nameplate the man had claimed to have been lying on his desk, and beside it…a torn photograph tucked under his favorite teacup.

It’s an old photograph, that much is evident. Its paper rusty and old, its colors fading, and its edges blunt from how carelessly and hastily it must have been torn. Levi holds it delicately up to the light, inspecting it, studying it. Two men stand shoulder to shoulder, both dressed in what he assumes is British World War II attire. The smaller, darker, angrier of the two has his face turned towards the taller, blonder, calmer one, who looks… wait. Well, he looks exactly like the man who just left his library. Levi blinks. Once. Twice. Trying to discern the face in the picture. Trying to get rid of whatever trick his mind is playing on him. But no… the face is definitely him. Levi is positive. Everything from the hair, the jaw, the cheekbones, the height. And the man standing next to him… well, he looks almost eerily like Levi himself, judging by his hair color and posture. But he has his face turned away so Levi cannot really tell. Levi’s eyes rove over the photograph; there must have been other men standing next to these two if the arm poking out from the blond’s side is any indication, but the photograph is so strategically torn so as to leave only the two men front and center. They seem to be holding hands, or more like… the taller one has his hand wrapped around the other one’s fist. It all feels so goddamn familiar to Levi. Like he has seen this photograph before. Like he has… lived it. In a dream of his.

And the man, the man who stands next to him in the photograph – _oh God_ , what was his name?  Levi _swears_ he remembers it, even though he knows he never asked the blond man his name in conversation just now. He feels like the name is just on…

_Just on the tip of his tongue._

Levi crumples the photograph in his fist, throws it onto his desk in a hurry, and runs frantically out of his counter and towards the entrance doors. He hurries down the stairs, taking two at a time, stumbles his landing, but gets up anyway, and looks around the block for the sight of a blond head. His heart is hammering in his chest, his pulse is deafeningly loud in his ears. His vision is blurry. He can’t think. He can’t see. He just…runs.

 

_“Levi.”_

_“What is it?” Levi drawls lazily._

_“Are you all right?” a voice asks him._

_It’s the softest voice Levi has heard in weeks. Calm, stoic, reassuring. Levi looks up from where they are lowering his mother’s casket into her grave, blinks the tears away from his eyes, and looks at the man who has addressed him._

_“Are you all right?” the man repeats himself, slower this time._

_It’s finally raining after so many months today. The smell of death and wet dust surrounds Levi, the humidity uncomfortable to the point of stifling. It’s invading his senses. He feels like he can’t breathe. Can’t think. His mother is dead, and he wishes he were dead himself._

_The man’s face is shadowed under his black umbrella so Levi can’t discern his features too clearly. He’s blond, is all he can say for his appearance at the moment. All he_ wants _to say. His throat is closing up. He feels like he’s going to faint._

_“Hm,” Levi offers the man in reply for his question._

_“It’s going to be fine –” the man begins, reaching forward to place a hand on Levi’s shoulder, but Levi cuts him off._

_“It’s_ **_not_ ** _going to be fine!” Levi half-shouts, slapping away the man’s arm. Some people in the crowd turn to look at him, but Levi doesn’t care. “Who are you anyway?” he challenges the man, “Why are you here?”_

_The man opens his mouth, but then closes it again. A hurt look flashes across his face. “I was just…”_

_“Trying to be polite?” Levi barks back, “Exchanging pleasantries at a funeral? You’re sick, you know that,” he shouts, then turns around to face the rest of the crowd, “You’re all fucking sick! You think I don’t know what you’re all here for? You think I don’t know how you’re going to cut up pieces of my mother’s reputation for tea after this? You’re all here to see the grand show, don’t kid yourselves. Enjoy the fucking tea, I’m out of here.”_

_Levi closes his umbrella, and turns around, pushing through the crowd and making his way to his own car. A hand catches his before he can open the door to the driver’s seat._

_“You’re going to forget this, Levi.” It’s that man again. “You always do. In the end.”_

_The rain crashes down around them, too loud, too loud. Levi can’t hear his own words as he shouts:_

_“What did you just say?”_

 

* * *

 

Levi doesn’t remember what happened yesterday.

One minute he is running out of the library, and the next he’s back in his own bed and it’s 5:45 am again. Levi can’t recall what he was even running for, or whether he was running at all. It could all be one big dream for all he knows. By the time Levi goes to switch off his morning alarm, the dream and any memory of it he had, is already gone.

 

It’s a quiet day at the library again, a few people show up, take some books and leave. One or two come to use the computers. The only interesting thing that happens is when Levi discovers two teenagers making out in the Archives section, who he not-so-respectfully, asks to leave.

The blond from yesterday does not show up. Levi feels almost disappointed, considering how enthusiastically the man had promised he would come back to finish his cassette. His tape is still in the VCR where he left it; Levi did not bother to remove it. No one has used the Archives section in ages anyway. Speaking of the Archives section, Levi is reminded of that odd photograph again, and wonders if that too had been but a dream. He walks back to his desk, shuffles around some papers, and finds the picture crumpled up into a ball by the foot of his chair. Levi lays it down on his desk, carefully smoothing out the creases, and inspects the photograph again. He must definitely not have been in the right state of mind yesterday because even though the blond man in the picture looks a lot like the blond man he had seen yesterday, there are some subtle differences. Maybe it’s just the creases on the paper, and the bruised and battered figure of the man in the picture that accentuate them but… there is no way that they are the same man.  

Yet, curiosity takes the better of Levi and he finds himself making his way down to the back row of Aisle 21, and pulling out the city’s collection of World War Two documents – newspaper clippings, articles, old war photographs, letters, official correspondences and the like. It’s almost 4 pm again, and the library has been calm and quiet and empty for the past two hours.  Levi sets the bundles of files on the floor, then goes to his desk to brew himself another cup of tea, closes the entrance doors, and makes his way back to the Archives aisle. He sits down on the marble floor, setting his cup of tea next to him, rests his back against one bookshelf, and props open the files in his lap to start reading.

 

By 6:30 pm, Levi realizes that he may have bitten off more than he can chew. Even with Levi’s meticulous filing system, there are about five years of history within these files, and not just some ordinary time period either. By 7 pm, Levi can officially say that he had underestimated how many documents the library really has on World War II. No wonder it had taken Blondie all day to get through these. The records are full of minute details: long lists of soldiers’ names, none of which Levi recognizes; official and non-official correspondences; soldiers’ love letters, commanders’ draft orders. It’s pages and pages _and pages_ of records, and by 11:30 pm, when Levi finally runs out of tea again (the second time in two days), and his eyes are merely seconds from closing, does he finally find it:

An old newspaper, dated 12 June 1944, torn from one side. The front cover shows an army of troops lined up for a photograph, with the caption underneath.

“ _June 4, 1944: the troops pose for a photograph moments before the invasion of Normandy. The Operation is headed by Captain L. Ackerman –”_

Levi blinks in surprise at the name, his heartbeat picking up a few paces inside his chest.

“ _and his Commanding Officer E._ ”

 _“Fuck,”_ Levi hisses, franticly turning the page back and forth, again and again, to find the missing piece of that name. He shuffles through the scattered documents, and is almost about to scream in frustration when he realizes:

_The photograph._

He gets up hurriedly, knocking over his favorite teacup against the marble. He can hear the sound of it breaking, but he doesn’t even care as he runs to his desk to fetch the photograph. His eyes scan the picture again, and again, and again, trying to find the last piece of the man’s name, anything other than that simple, deathly “E”. But there is nothing. Nothing on that photograph except the faces of the two men. No names. No initials. No marks except the creases he left himself. Nothing.

Levi falls down against his desk and can’t help the tears as they fall.

 

_It’s the sound of the matchstick striking against the side of the matchbox that finally wakes Levi._

_“Those will kill you, you know,” he says._

_They know they have to leave with the soldiers in a few hours. As soon as the sun goes down. But it hasn’t gone down just yet. And it’s comfortable like this: pretending they’re no more than ordinary lovers, laying together on a peaceful summer afternoon, as the slowly setting sun warms their bodies against the cold fear of the unknown that lies outside their bedroom doors._

_“And what makes you think I’m so keen on living, hm?” the man jokes lightly, setting fire to the end of his cigarette and taking a low drag from it._

_“Tch,” Levi clicks his tongue, “Don’t say shit like that, you idiot.”_

_The man looks over his shoulder and into Levi’s eyes. “You’re right. I’m sorry,” he says, as he continues to take deep drags from his cigarette._

_“Aren’t you the one always telling me it’s going to be all right, huh, Commander?” Levi smiles playfully, moving his foot to tickle at the man’s toes beneath the sheets. The blond laughs, and Levi swears it’s the most wholesome thing he’s ever heard. He puts out his cigarette on the wooden bedside table, burning a mark into it, and crosses an arm across Levi’s chest. His fingers card through Levi’s hair, and blue eyes meet gray –_

_“You still don’t remember, do you?”_

 

* * *

 

Waking up is harsh.

Especially when his dreams are so much better than his reality.

The saddest part of it though, Levi thinks now, is that sooner or later, even the memory of his dreams fades. If he is lucky enough to remember them at all, that is. And eventually, when it’s all over, he's left with nothing but this empty feeling of detachment, left to wade through whatever empty void of emotions remains – the only proof that he ever had the dream to begin with.

When Levi wakes up, it’s 8 am, and he is still clutching the photograph in his hand. His face is pressed against the cold marble of the floor, and his back aches from being pressed against the uncomfortable wooden desk all night. His counter is a mess. Aisle 21, he supposes, must be a mess too, but he’s so goddamn tired, he cannot find the will or energy to clean up the broken pieces of china or rearrange the scattered clutter of files and paper and documents and –

 _Fucking_ photographs.

Levi packs up his stuff, throws the rusty old picture in the trash can, locks the entrance doors and goes home.

 

* * *

 

_He’s dying. Levi knows he’s dying. Levi knows he wants to die. Levi knows he’s going to let him._

_They’re on a rooftop. Levi’s hand trembles as he holds the syringe to the man’s arm. The blond catches his wrist, nods his head no with the final ounce of strength he has left, and pulls Levi’s neck down to meet him._

_“Don’t forget me,” he coughs out, blood trickling down his chin._

_“I don’t want to,” Levi sobs, tears marking a wet line through the blood on his face, “I don’t ever want to forget you.”_

_“Good,” the man huffs out, his eyes almost closing._

_“Tell me how!” Levi shouts. “Tell me how I can find you again!”_

_“Just…” he smiles. Holds a hand up to Levi’s cheek._

_“Ask me my name.”_

 

* * *

 

The blaring alarms from the far corner of the room bring him out of his uneasy haze.

Levi blinks his eyes open slowly, and raises a hand to shield his eyes against the sallow glow of the streetlamp behind the curtains. His cheek is wet with tears… even though he has already forgotten what he was just dreaming about. Only the half-formed memory of warmth remains, lingering still to the skin of his cheek. He cannot remember what the dream was even about anymore. Only a command. A dying man’s last request.

_“Ask me my name.”_

The alarm keeps ringing, but Levi does not move to turn it off. It all feels so surrealistic to him still, the dream and the man’s whisper against his ear. The cold blow of air on his neck. The fading warmth of a hand on his cheek. It feels real and tangible and concrete. Something he touched. Something he felt. Blue hues, green hues, and golden. Names he cannot will his tongue to speak. A man. A presence. One that feels realer to him than anything that exists in his own world. A man. A presence.

One that is waiting for Levi to remember him.

 

He finds the man on the steps of the library days after he first met him. He’s sitting on the last stair, toying with a weed that’s poking out of the gray concrete. He stands up as Levi approaches the building.

“Um, I’m sorry, I was just waiting for the library to open,” he explains, eyes glued to the floor, “I wanted to come a few days ago, but I was busy and–”

Levi interrupts him. “I know you, don’t I?”                 

The man pauses abruptly, continuing to look away from Levi, until Levi repeats his question.

“I said I know you, don’t –”

“Yes,” the man looks up. His eyes are welling with tears that he’s trying so hard not to let fall. He swallows. “Yes, you –” his voice breaks, “you do.”

As he looks at the man now, under the brilliant rays of the newly risen sun, Levi cannot fathom how he could have ever forgotten this face. The softness of its blue orbs, the rigidness of its jaw and cheekbones. The worry lines across the forehead that Levi’s hand remembers so well running fingers across. The gold of his hair that shines… with all the glory and permanence of the sun.

“I can’t believe it took you so long this time,” he sighs, tears trickling down his face.

“I’m so sorry,” Levi cries, stepping closer to him, “I’m so sorry I forgot.”

“No, no, it’s alright, it’s –” the man wipes the tears from his cheek.

“But I remember now,” Levi’s crying too now, can’t help himself from wrapping his arms around the frame of this man who he feels like he has known forever, even though… he doesn’t even know his name yet.

“Hey listen,” Levi says against the man’s chest.

“Yes, Levi?”

He pauses. Fumbles for a moment on how to phrase the question. But decides to blurt it out anyway.

“…what’s your name?”

The man bellows out a laugh, and Levi smiles at the vibrations that run through his own chest. He bends down, presses a kiss to Levi’s head, and when he whispers the name to his ear, Levi can’t help but wonder how it could have ever been anything else.

**Author's Note:**

> I watched Endgame and AOT season 3.2 all in the same week, and hence this fic was born


End file.
